


Clinical

by nicostolemybones (fatherlords)



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Death, Illness, M/M, Manslaughter, Minor Character Death, Repression, plague! Will, solangelo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-19
Updated: 2020-03-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:15:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23221561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fatherlords/pseuds/nicostolemybones
Summary: Why Will is clinicalI do not give permission for my work to appear on any apps nor do I consent to my work being reposted anywhere. If you see my work outside of my tumblr or outside of any blogs/accounts I mention in my fics, please report/contact them or inform me. If you report them, do not report as if it were your own work.My tumblr is @nicostolemybones
Relationships: Nico di Angelo/Will Solace
Comments: 10
Kudos: 38





	Clinical

"Why are you so cold?" It was a question, an angry question from a camper as Will stood over a dead body, staring down, expressionless. 

"It's easier this way," Will replied, monotone. "I need to move the body. You should leave now so I can examine the remains before sending it to Nico."

"He's not an it! That's my brother!"

"Please leave."

"Something's seriously fucking wrong with you, you shouldn't be allowed anywhere near patients!" Will didn't react. He didn't react as he moved the fresh corpse, cut it open to find the cause of death, stitched it and texted Nico to pick the body up.

He sat by the side of the body, reached out to take a cold hand. Like Nico's hands, he thought, just larger, rougher, less twitchy. His mind was screaming at him to cry, but he felt nothing. He couldn't anymore. Not after the second camper he lost. 

He could never get that day out of his head. The first camper he'd lost had died of a stab wound in training, and Will? He was traumatised and angry. He went ballistic, hunched over the body of his friend, screaming and shouting, glowing until the heat of his glow hurt him, panicking because that was somebody's baby boy in his arms bleeding all because some stab happy camper refused to follow the rules of capture the flag.

Will was angry. He was so angry, he cried and screamed and yelled at the culprit, the murderer.

Then a few days later, the camper fell sick. Will quarantined him immediately, of course, but his condition worsened. It turned into a haemorrhagic fever, blood seeping out, filling his body cavities. Nobody else was sick. There was no source. There was no cure. Three last words.

"I forgive you."

Then Will realised why. 

So he couldn't be emotional. He couldn't react. He couldn't be sad or angry or scared. Not when he had to watch somebody die because of him.

So he was cold, clinical. Because he had to be. He had to live with the guilt of manslaughter.

And Nico? Nico understood death, Nico caused death. Nico understood Will in a way Will didn't believe he deserved, and Nico pointed out that no demigod was without blood on their hands. Only the good feel guilty like this. Nico was the only person in a long time who made Will feel like he could forgive himself for what he'd done.

Will was scared of becoming a monster. He hadn't realised that he was turning himself into a different kind of monster. He was clinical, so used to repressing and compartmentalising everything into logical boxes to lock away forever and never dealing with it, that he was like ice.

Sunshine boy.

Like ice.

Radioactive glow, don't get too close.

Contagion.

And Nico? 

Death boy

Like summer

Calm shadows, come stay for a while.

Healing.

Will was clinical, but Nico wasn't business. Nico was the one who could make Will cry. And Will needed to cry. If Will was the plague, Nico was the cure. Nico was the only one who could make Will feel, although Will always contained his anger. Maybe he could cry, but he couldn't let his anger escape. On the odd occasions it did, he stayed away, chastised himself, buried himself in books and research, because he had to be a better healer.

He had to cure what he was capable of causing.

Except you can't study what you can't control, what you can't test. And Will couldn't test this ethically.

He could only contain it.

Contain himself. 

Holed up in the infirmary, burying his feelings.

Clinical.


End file.
